At this point Agility is top for Red Sockets, Yellow Sockets should be using Agi / Critical Strike. Currently with all the PTR testing I have done Mastery will continue to be the bottom secondary stat due to how low the scaling is with our new Mastery. Since 5.4 hasn't released yet this could change but I expect it to launch like this and be changed later if it needs to be.

About Me
I have played WoW since Friends & Family Alpha and started as a Warrior which I played until the end of Vanilla clearing all content. I have played Ret exclusively since the launch of TBC until current killing everything, I just re-rolled a Windwalker as the guild has 3 of the best Rets in game and I decided a time for change was now. I have a long history of high ranking in fights that are Non gimmic / pad encounters. I hope to bring my experience and knowledge over to the Windwalker spec and perform as well as I did for Ret.

I wanted to add that your stat priority is correct - though, it's worth noting Crit will probably sim higher than Mastery (it did early on). In practice, especially with 4set, mastery will be stronger. I have the feeling, though, that there will be a break point where crit > mastery - there IS a haste break point (somewhere around 8K haste, it depends on your other stats, namely your AP) but that's mathematically; in practicality, I think it will be encounter dependent early on, and set-bonus related later on. On PTR, I found crit to give better numbers than Mastery prior to picking up the 4set, but don't quote me on that because I didn't simulate it properly.

It may also be worth noting that we will still want to have around 4-5K Haste (current, 3-4K - the additional haste will be from higher item-level gear and lower CB procs).

Overall, it seems more like a laundry list of gear, though. I think there'll need to be sims run with a few setups to spot what the "perfect" setup would be. But, having a list of it is helpful - especially when selecting which pieces to pick up.

Also worth noting that I don't see agility dropping in value. Yes, we double-dip, but that's not why - it's only 1/1200 of a crit point, but the way we scale with AP still makes it a very strong stat.

I wanted to add that your stat priority is correct - though, it's worth noting Crit will probably sim higher than Mastery (it did early on). In practice, especially with 4set, mastery will be stronger. I have the feeling, though, that there will be a break point where crit > mastery - there IS a haste break point (somewhere around 8K haste, it depends on your other stats, namely your AP) but that's mathematically; in practicality, I think it will be encounter dependent early on, and set-bonus related later on. On PTR, I found crit to give better numbers than Mastery prior to picking up the 4set, but don't quote me on that because I didn't simulate it properly.

It may also be worth noting that we will still want to have around 4-5K Haste (current, 3-4K - the additional haste will be from higher item-level gear and lower CB procs).

Overall, it seems more like a laundry list of gear, though. I think there'll need to be sims run with a few setups to spot what the "perfect" setup would be. But, having a list of it is helpful - especially when selecting which pieces to pick up.

Also worth noting that I don't see agility dropping in value. Yes, we double-dip, but that's not why - it's only 1/1200 of a crit point, but the way we scale with AP still makes it a very strong stat.

Absolutely you have to start with something, It can't be 100% BiS until we are 100% sure where the stat values fall. Heroic Thunderforged gear will place a kink in the traditional BiS lists because who knows if you will be the lucky person to get one or multiple pieces. As far as the stat priority goes much like other classes it will depend on gear and will always be best to sim your gear before blindly following one persons advice.

Once we have a better understanding of where the stat values are I'll add an indicator as to what would be assumed as BiS and the list will be more complete when 5.2 is actually out and all the balances of the stats are adjusted correctly.

I take it your list of items for each slot are in some kind of random order and you are just listing them off?

Fairly obvious, Thunderforge is on the top, Tier is 2nd and until we are 100% sure on stat priority you can't narrow it down much further than that. However it will be narrowed down with a little more testing which will allow me to further narrow down what would be a true BiS list.

As sad as I am to see a good Ret player change classes (I also played as Ret since TBC), I'm delighted to see you switch to WW. It'll be good for the community as a whole to have another good theorycrafter / contributor here on the forums. Albeit sometimes controversial, I always found your posts to be of real interest.

As sad as I am to see a good Ret player change classes (I also played as Ret since TBC), I'm delighted to see you switch to WW. It'll be good for the community as a whole to have another good theorycrafter / contributor here on the forums. Albeit sometimes controversial, I always found your posts to be of real interest.

Anyways, it's nice to see you here, so welcome

I love having more people to TC with, so no issues here either

LIke I said in my first post - it seems more like a laundry list, but with our mastery change, any two combination of secondary stats is OK for us. There's just certain combinations that will be better, and part of the fun in testing is finding the "best" combination overall.

And, of course, less gear competition. I know that I'll be passing certain gear to our rogues as it'll be better for them, rather than fighting over ONE belt

How do you want to generate the BiS list. You have to remember that all gear besides tier can be Heroic Thunderforged. It just means that Ra-den has 100% chance to be Tunderforged.

Well if you happen to be the player that gets a full thunderforged set we can all envy you. However having an idea of what pieces will be best based on stat value is always very helpful. Monks currently have a lack of theory-crafting as they are a new class. When I started doing this for Ret back in TBC I got a lot of the same responses so I'm not surprised by any of them at all.

At it looks Mastery < Haste up to 4-5K < Crit will be the secondary priority the difference between Haste and Crit won't matter as much because once you get that Haste cap that feels good for the rotation you will start dumping extra into Crit. I've setup a few different gear builds and I'll remove some of the extra items off the list and high light what should be the absolute BiS outside of Thunderforged and Race bonuses.

---------- Post added 2013-02-16 at 11:11 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Alviarin

Hey Requital,

As sad as I am to see a good Ret player change classes (I also played as Ret since TBC), I'm delighted to see you switch to WW. It'll be good for the community as a whole to have another good theorycrafter / contributor here on the forums. Albeit sometimes controversial, I always found your posts to be of real interest.

Anyways, it's nice to see you here, so welcome

Thanks, I feel like all the time I did TC for Ret and all the time I played the class it I felt like I pretty much did everything one person could do. The game was getting stale and really started to feel as Ret had nothing to offer. The chance to move to WW was a chance to tackle a more theory-crafting from a new side. I expect to see a lot of Ret Paladins with Monk alts the classes are so close it's not even funny but the Monk is 100% more fun than Ret is currently.

I can't wait to get more involved with the Windwalker class I'm having more fun than I have had in a long time!

I'm a bit curious how stat priority will go on multiple targets similar to the guardians. With the addition of SE&F will Crit and Haste be superior to mastery? Taking into account the clones also do tiger strikes and auto attacks by themselves.

odd how some items with mastery aren't bis, in the current version i play with about 4.5k haste to have no downtime, should remain the same as i believe the passive ( old mastery ) is 16%

It's going to be 12%. Most are speculating it will be around the 6.5k mark before you would have the same rotational feel as you do live. Keep in mind that on live you also have to factor into the fact that you would most likely have the Mastery Raid buff from Shamans and Paladins; which tacks on an additional 7% chance to perform a Combo Breaker.

It's going to be 12%. Most are speculating it will be around the 6.5k mark before you would have the same rotational feel as you do live. Keep in mind that on live you also have to factor into the fact that you would most likely have the Mastery Raid buff from Shamans and Paladins; which tacks on an additional 7% chance to perform a Combo Breaker.

I ran some testing in PTR's LFR, where my haste was scaled down to ~4800. I was completely comfortable with almost 0 downtime - granted, I also had full tier on at the time.

I don't think that the lack of CB procs will hurt us, but it does give us more flexibility next tier. With our current BiS, it's difficult to even get below 5K haste (I think our original BiS made it mathematically impossible, but now the items being considered BiS give much more breathing room in that regard). I think that next tier, we may find it more difficult to get below 6K, maybe even 6.5K, so moving CB to a passive will allow us to account for that.

In other words: I don't think that our haste soft cap will necessarily change, but we'll have more "breathing room" (per se) as far as reaching higher levels of haste. I'm just not sure right now if we'll want to actively seek it, after what I've experienced thus far.

I ran some testing in PTR's LFR, where my haste was scaled down to ~4800. I was completely comfortable with almost 0 downtime - granted, I also had full tier on at the time.

I don't think that the lack of CB procs will hurt us, but it does give us more flexibility next tier. With our current BiS, it's difficult to even get below 5K haste (I think our original BiS made it mathematically impossible, but now the items being considered BiS give much more breathing room in that regard). I think that next tier, we may find it more difficult to get below 6K, maybe even 6.5K, so moving CB to a passive will allow us to account for that.

In other words: I don't think that our haste soft cap will necessarily change, but we'll have more "breathing room" (per se) as far as reaching higher levels of haste. I'm just not sure right now if we'll want to actively seek it, after what I've experienced thus far.

From all the testing I have been able to do and work with Haste is just going to be there and all the gear in 5.2 has gems all over the place where they did not exist in this tier. We have a lot of yellow sockets so we have a lot of room to play. Gear wise and stat wise I think after a complete reforge we're still going to be sitting around 4500-5500 Haste. I really don't think you will want higher than that but as always that will be encounter based as well.

Simcraft seems to be off, I'm not sure the issue but PTR related I'm getting some pretty sub-par values for Mastery which doesn't seem correct but I decided to run some more tests instead of just stopping there. I think on most of our gear we will want to avoid Hit/Exp gear there seems to be plenty of it between Tier gear and Gems alone.

Next time I see Eein on, I'll ask him about it. To my understanding, it's not quite the module that calculates it, but he'd know a bit more. I'd hop into their IRC if I were you and point it out, either way. Also - and this is purely mathematical - crit IS better than mastery, in that it works well with both mastery and haste builds. It's just in practice that mastery begins to take precedence.

I had to forge up to 6K haste when testing, including gems. But, at heroic levels, I don't think that'd be the case.

As for hit/exp gear - if it has Mastery on it, I think it'll be strong in some slots. You just probably wouldn't want more than one or two slots to have it, but I agree to the point that - even currently - forging Haste (and on live, Mastery) into hit/exp will still be preferable.

Updated main post with what should be our BiS setup not including any Thunderforged gear, The overall secondary values are close to what we had assumed and this is the best build I have come across maximizing secondary stats.

I am 90% sure the Terra-Cotta necklace is a trash drop and doesn't have a heroic version. I think I saw one drop during raid testing on PTR (a strength one). Moreover, there's a version of this neck for every role (can't post links yet, but you can search any item DB for "terra-cotta" in necks), and they follow the same naming pattern that the Jade Figurine trinkets did in MSV. It will be BiS among normal 522 necks, but if there's no heroic version, I would probably go with Quadra-Head Brooch as heroic BiS.

I am 90% sure the Terra-Cotta necklace is a trash drop and doesn't have a heroic version. I think I saw one drop during raid testing on PTR (a strength one). Moreover, there's a version of this neck for every role (can't post links yet, but you can search any item DB for "terra-cotta" in necks), and they follow the same naming pattern that the Jade Figurine trinkets did in MSV. It will be BiS among normal 522 necks, but if there's no heroic version, I would probably go with Quadra-Head Brooch as heroic BiS.

I really hate when the item is there but not available for us, This is the first I have heard of it being one but I will change the list to reflect it thanks! Updated to reflect proper neck with reforging change.